A Model of: Providing Actionable Feedback to Students: A Cornerstone of an Effective Literacy Initiative SHARON WOLDER, PRINCIPAL “We know from research by John Hattie and Helen Timperley that feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative.” CASE STUDY BY THE NUMBERS 4,200 Students 76% Minority 80% Free/Reduced Lunch 14% Students with Disabilities 17% English Language Learners 80% High Needs Population 50% First Language Not English 33% Graduates with State Scholarships WHAT is our strategy? Brockton High is the first school to be recognized as a Model School for 12 consecutive years. The Model School designation is a result of Brockton High’s continuous commitment to high expectations and innovative approaches to improving literacy for ALL students. The leadership and all members of the Brockton High faculty and staff have de- veloped a nationally famous schoolwide literacy initiative. What is unique about this initiative is how every adult who comes into contact with students in school is trained to improve reading, writing, speaking and reasoning. The gym teacher, the art teacher, the guidance counselor, the nurse, all of the academic teachers—all subjects and staff focus on this initiative. They all learn the strategies to immerse our students in an environment ripe for literacy development. An important extension of the literacy program has been its focus on teacher feed- back on student writing and student use of feedback. We have created a way for teachers to learn about effective feedback and for students to make concrete and targeted use of it. BROCKTON HIGH SCHOOL BROCKTON, MA
Transcript
A Model of:
Providing Actionable Feedback to Students: A Cornerstone of an Effective Literacy InitiativeS HAR O N W O LD E R , P R I N C I PA L
“We know from research by John Hattie and Helen Timperley that feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative.”
CA
SE
ST
UD
Y
BY THE NUMBERS
4,200 Students
76% Minority
80% Free/Reduced Lunch
14% Students with Disabilities
17% English Language Learners
80% High Needs Population
50% First Language Not English
33% Graduates with State Scholarships
WHAT is our strategy?Brockton High is the first school to be recognized as a Model School for 12 consecutive years. The Model School designation is a result of Brockton High’s continuous commitment to high expectations and innovative approaches to improving literacy for ALL students.
The leadership and all members of the Brockton High faculty and staff have de-veloped a nationally famous schoolwide literacy initiative. What is unique about this initiative is how every adult who comes into contact with students in school is trained to improve reading, writing, speaking and reasoning. The gym teacher, the art teacher, the guidance counselor, the nurse, all of the academic teachers—all subjects and staff focus on this initiative. They all learn the strategies to immerse our students in an environment ripe for literacy development.
An important extension of the literacy program has been its focus on teacher feed-back on student writing and student use of feedback. We have created a way for teachers to learn about effective feedback and for students to make concrete and targeted use of it.
BROCKTON HIGH SCHOOLBROCKTON, MA
HOW did we build this strategy?We know from research by John Hattie and Helen Timperley that feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative. We needed to determine how to provide effective feedback so our students could improve.
START WITH OUR FOUNDATION IN TEACHING LITERACY
We began by working with what we had already built, an idea that everyone in our school can teach writing. English, math, science, social science, electives—they all involve tasks and processes which involve clear and effective written communication for activities such as:
• Taking notes
• Explaining one’s thinking
• Arguing a thesis and supporting one’s thinking
• Comparing and contrasting
• Writing an open response
• Describing an experiment and reporting one’s findings and conclusion
• Generating a response to what one has read, viewed, or heard
• Thinking in complete sentences
• Developing an expository essay with a formal structure
STAFF TRAINING ON ACTIVE READING STRATEGIES
We needed consistency among staff so our strategy was aligned; we did not want to send mixed messages to our students. Our active reading strategy is as follows:
1. Read the question.
2. Make notations in the text.
A. Circle key direction verbs, suhc as write, draw, explain, compare, show, copy.
B. Underline important information. Often there is information in a question that is irrelevant to finding the answer.
3. In your own words, write what the question is asking you to do.
4. Develop your plan/answer the question.
With this strategy, we focused on creating a method for providing and using feedback that would align with our existing goals and targets. We put student learning at the center of a new initiative that included rubrics, literacy charts/skills, the district writing goal, and feedback. We held workshops to teach the definition of feedback, its effect, and its connections to literacy charts and rubrics, providing examples.
We focused on the power of feedback and the ways teachers could structure it to make it clear and actionable to help a student improve his or her writing. Feedback, when frequent, constructive and instructive, is a powerful tool in learning and improve-ment in writing. Sensitivity is crucially important, as is the relationship between the teacher and the student.
BROCKTON HIGH SCHOOLBROCKTON, MA
“We focused on the power of feedback and the ways teachers could structure it to make it clear and actionable to help a student improve his or her writing. Feedback, when frequent, constructive and instructive, is a powerful tool in learning and improvement in writing. Sensitivity is crucially important, as is the relationship between the teacher and the student.”
“Our students have grown accustomed to writing out their thinking, no matter what subject they are focused on. We no longer have to tell them to write out what they are thinking; they have just developed new habits.”
FOLLOW US:
Brockton High School Website
Our defined goals for corrective, written feedback were that it be:
1. Timely information that acknowledges student progress toward a clearly defined goal
2. Affirming of student strengths
3. Guiding to improve performance
4. Leading to reflective learning and independence
We noted that feedback on written work should focus on the content goals of the lesson and can be written or oral, as well as teacher to student, student to teacher, or student to student.
DISTRICT WRITING GOAL
During the school year, students will demonstrate growth toward proficiency in writing through teacher corrective feedback. Each term, students will produce samples in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience.
With a focus on this writing goal, we mapped and demonstrated connections between Brockton High’s literacy charts, writing rubrics, and feedback. Feedback can be pro-vided on any assignment, including math.
How do students respond to feedback? After so closely defining and targeting our feedback, two important questions about student responses to feedback arose:
1. Do our students understand what is meant by feedback, its nature and its purpose?
2. How can we get students to make better use of the feedback they are provided? What requirements do students have to use feedback? What strategies motivate students to apply feedback they receive?
In response, we determined that our goal is to motivate students to use the informa-tion provided to improve their performance, whether they are using feedback in writing, orally or self-reflectively.
We developed a Student Feedback Log that prompts students to record feedback, strengths and instructions for improvement. Students paraphrase the information the teacher provided to understand it in their own words. They are then to reflect on learn-ing and set goals for future assignments.
Students use the feedback logs as the centerpieces of their plans to revise assign-ments or complete similar assignments. The feedback logs provide the targeted information that translates into distinct goals or intentions for another writing effort, whether it is a new draft or a new assignment. Our teachers have rated the feedback initiative one of the most effective strategies we have used schoolwide.
What drives our belief in the importance of feedback? Feedback has been shown to have the greatest effect on student learning (Hattie, 2003, 2007) and guidance in how to process feedback for improvement is a key part of its effectiveness. This does not need to take a significant amount of time in class, but focusing on it for a few min-utes to help students develop the habit of reading and/or using feedback is valuable.
How has our strategy impacted our students?Our literacy initiative has been transformative to our school culture as well as our indi-vidual students. Our students have grown accustomed to writing out their thinking, no matter what subject they are focused on. We no longer have to tell them to write out what they are thinking; they have just developed new habits.
Our students are proud to be at school and they work hard. They don’t make excuses for not trying and they are confident in their acquired skills that have improved their learning in all subject areas.
FOLLOWING UP on this strategyRELEVANT RESOURCES
“5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback” by Marianne Stenger Five tips for providing students with the kind of feedback that will increase motivation, build on existing knowledge and help them reflect on what they’ve learned
Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning by John Hattie Shows both teacher and student perspectives and contains step-by-step guidance including lesson preparation, interpreting learning and feedback during the lesson and post-lesson follow up
Transforming Brockton High School: High Standards, High Expectations, No Excuses by Susan Szachowicz Provides an in-depth account of the process of turning a challenged high school into a success model of what is possible when literacy is addressed systematically
